June 13th, 2008 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | 2 Comments »
Two US gamers have started a class act lawsuit against EA for it’s
monopoly on the American Football game market. EA Mobile acquired the
rights to the first license back in 2004.
The first Amerikan Football license acquired by EA was the national league. After that, EA acquired the licensed to Ncaa College Football and AFL. According to the gamers, the prize of Madden 06 raised directly after these licensing deals.
According to the students, Take-Two is the only company that made and can make American Football games of high enough quality. With this also in the lawsuit, the students could even endanger the takeover of Take-Two by EA.
If the students win the lawsuit, EA Mobile will also start seeing competition on the US decks as suddenly mobile game developers could get hold of American Football licenses. At this moment, a non-branded American Football game would have no chance of being successful in the market.
I think you are mistaken. There are already other mobile football games on the market, such as Reggie Bush Pro Football 2008.
Hi Michael,
You are right, however for the normal games world this seems not to be the case. If there is, then the license is small as well, just like the mobile game you mentioned. The gamers argue here that with all big licenses snapped by EA, another game doesn’t really have a chance in the market. And if a lawsuit prevents EA from owning all big licenses, it would impact the mobile gaming market.